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An important aspect of your online business is being able to cope with the many challenges that you will encounter.  When you start online, you may not have that positive attitude and belief to be able to deal with the disappointments.  This is where self development comes in.

Self development should be ongoing in your business, you can never learn too much.  You should be striving to learning new things, developing your skills and knowledge. 

Here are some helpful tips that you can put into your business.

o    Books – You want to start investing in your future by reading self development books.  All successful people read these books because they seek new ways on improving themselves.  These books can give you ideas, inspiration and belief.  Whatever you are lacking in business knowledge you can learn from books.

o    Create a library - Start building yourself a library.  What is good idea is to buy a book a month which will slowly build up your collection.  However, a common error is to read it once and let the dust settle on it, never to pick up that book again!  When you read a book you only retain a small percentage, so it makes sense to read it again.

o    Audio – We all love listening to music, it can be a great motivator to get you pumped up just when we need it.  However, when we are on the move it is an ideal time to pick up useful innovative ideas and new skills. 

Self development doesn’t need to take huge chunks of your day.  Reading for half an hour just before you go to sleep is a method that I would recommend.

In his audio e-book, 10 Habits to Swell Your

Bank Account, Mike Green cites “discipline” as one

of the 10 bank-account-swelling habits. I once received

an email from an online marketing friend, which stated

something to the effect of “how hard do we work? If

people think earning money online is easy their crazy.

Don’t burn to much midnight oil.”

Self-discipline is a crucial factor in developing

business success. Whether you are online or offline you’ll

need to develop some level of self-discipline. As I was

reading Mr. Green’s e-book I began to think about the

factors or “disciplines” that make up business self-discipline.

I think the first discipline is developing an

understand that you’re home business, your entrepreneurial

project, your online part-time business is a job. It’s

one more form of employment but you’re working for

yourself, your family, your partners, or other shareholders.

Those of use who work 8-5 or are employed by others

get up every morning, go to work, do our job, and receive

our paycheck. You need to view your self-employment

in the same manner. There will be no profit without regular,

sometimes monotonous effort.

The second discipline, I believe, is consistency.

Have a time for everything and everything done in it’s time.

Set a time to perform administrative tasks such as maintain

the books; set a time to engage in management tasks such

as meeting or being with employees and do it. Set times to

develop goals and budgets and do it. Be consistent in your

projects, endeavors, and campaigns. If you decide on a

given marketing campaign be assured one of the factors that

will determine the success of the campaign will be your

willingness to be consistent in your marketing. Consistency

develops brand awareness, product/service recognition, and

credibility.

Consistency also means answering every business

inquiry, every phone call, every email, every fax, every phone message

in a timely and customer friendly manner. This builds

trustworthiness and credibility which over the long term

will serve you very well.

For those who work from their homes, consistency

tends to be difficult thus it’s important to develop a work

area and a work schedule that integrates with your family,

friends, and other engagements. You then need to hold

the line and be consistent with that schedule and area.

For example, I check my email in the early evening and

I make sure to inform my kids that I’ll be with them when

I’m done and not before. I also work on my website in

the late evening hours and my wife know that rarely

should I be interrupted. I also keep a fairly consistent

schedule concerning how often and when I write articles;

how often and when I visit online forums; and when I

read articles and research pertaining to my online business.

Which brings me to the third discipline. I believe

the third discipline making up self-discipline is ongoing learning.

Whether you’re in business online, offline or both you

should be making a disciplined effort to stay abreast of

your chosen field of business. You should be reading

articles, reading research, engaging in discussion with

professional colleagues, and in generally always attempting

to grow your knowledge base.

For my business, “Consumer Thinking.com” I read

at least one academic journal article per week; I read at least

one online business/marketing article per day and I read at

least one ebook per week. This is in addition to the three

hardcopy books I have going.

This practice provide me with several benefits.

1) I always have material for writing fresh articles;

2) I always have fresh information to use when I’m visiting online forums;

3) I always have fresh material for developing new

information products; and

4) I am assured of quality, relevant content for my

monthly ezine.

By always expanding your knowledge base and increasing

your learning it helps you develop credibility and legitimacy

in your chosen field, profession, or business.

The fourth and final discipline that I’ve

identified is the discipline of sacrifice. Every successful

entrepreneur and self-employed business person I know

and know of have engaged in the discipline of sacrifice.

They’ve given up entertainment for extra marketing; they’ve

sacrificed sleep for quiet hours to be creative and

productive; they’ve sacrificed leisure time for learning.

If you plan on being successful in business you’ll need to

give up a few hours in front of the television or fewer

nights out at the bars and clubs. If your focus, vision,

and business are worthwhile the sacrifice will be worth it.

There is no avoiding self-discipline if you plan

on being successfully self-employed. You’ll need to

sacrifice, be consistent, keep learning, and view your

self-employment as a real job. Combining discipline

with patience, focus, and passion tends to lead to success.

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It is often said that if you can’t believe in yourself, then others can’t believe in you either. In competitive sport, it’s essential that athletes believe in themselves but it’s also important that their belief is based on what they know themselves to be capable of rather than what they, or others, say they’re capable of. Sports psychology 2 methods give both coach and athlete the ability to prepare for competition, physically and mentally, so that when the pressure is on, actions will always speak louder than words!

“I am the greatest” – Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali is a great example of a sportsperson who had a lot to say about his abilities but his beliefs were always firmly based on what he knew himself to be capable of achieving. Sports psychology 2 can help coaches create the same ‘winning mentality’ in their athletes by developing a system of preparation that includes mind training as well as physical training.

The four pillars of performance – Technical, Tactical, Physical, Psychological – provide coaches with a solid support system on which to build greater strengths in the abilities of their athletes as well as their own coaching. Knowing where your strengths lie as a coach is of great importance but being able to identify where weaknesses lie is equally so.

It is not uncommon for coaches to develop a coaching style which is based on their strengths, effectively allowing them to hide from any weaknesses, but this can have a direct effect on how athletes view their performances – or their potential to win. For example, an athlete under the guidance of a coach who is particularly strong in the area of physical fitness may begin to believe their failure to succeed in competition is purely down to a lack of fitness. In reality, the lack of success is much more likely to be down to lack of psychological fitness or some other aspect of preparation but until the coach recognises the weakness, appropriate action can’t be taken.

To be able to view themselves as potential winners, athletes must be given the opportunity to develop confidence in their abilities across all aspects of competition preparation – all four pillars. A coach with a balance in all four pillars will be able to produce equally balanced performers. Sports psychology 2 techniques allow coaches to develop a winning mentality in their athletes without fear of promoting an over-confident attitude but to do this, coaches must first have an awareness of where each athlete believes their own strengths and weaknesses to be. What an athlete believes and what a coach sees can be quite different. An athlete with superior physical ability is not guaranteed to win over a weaker opponent if he doesn’t believe himself to be superior.

Developing a winning mentality is a process just like any other aspect of training and preparation for competition. Telling an athlete that they’re in winning form on competition day will have little effect if the athlete doesn’t believe it themselves. Putting sports psychology 2 practices in place long before competition day allows coaches and athletes to feel positively prepared and feeling positively prepared creates a positive, winning mentality -

“You are the greatest!”